Francis Alÿs swapped a drawing
of him with a Mexican collector, Zacarias Martin , for this small
tapestry produced by Alighiero e Boetti in Afghanistan.
He explains, in a certificate which was joined, he just learned
that the ancestor of Alighiero e Boetti, Giovanni Battista Boetti,
had led in the XVIIIth century the Chechenian resistance against
Catherine of Russia. He also says at the end of the certificate
that Alighiero Boetti would undoubtedly have been very pleased
to be able to send a work on the ground for which his ancestor
had fought 3 centuries earlier.
In the envelop with the certificate, there are also the copies
of the information that he found in a book as well as a drawing
explaining how to present Alighiero e Boetti's work in Chechnya
: the original work will have to be presented beside the certificate
of Francis Alÿs and the copies of the book in which he found
the information. |